Q-Commerce Super Stores Are Growing Fast. Should FMCG Brands Care?

Quick commerce started as a groceries and essentials business. The original promise was simple: a packet of chips, a bag of onions, a carton of milk, at your door in 10 minutes. That category focus is what made the unit economics work in the early years, because high-frequency, low-ticket purchases in dense urban catchments give dark stores the order volumes they need to break even.

That picture is changing considerably in 2026. Platforms are pushing hard into what they are calling Super Stores, expanded dark store formats that go well beyond groceries into electronics, appliances, beauty, fashion accessories, pet care, home essentials, and beyond. Non-grocery categories are already growing 1.6 times faster than groceries on quick commerce platforms, according to industry tracking data. And ad spending on Blinkit, Zepto, and Swiggy Instamart surged from Rs 1,325 crore to Rs 4,000 crore in 2025 alone, a 202 percent increase in a single year, with projections pointing to Rs 6,000 crore in 2026.

The platforms have a clear incentive here. Non-grocery categories carry higher margins than staples, they increase average order value, and they make the quick commerce pitch to public market analysts considerably more compelling. Zepto's DRHP and Flipkart's IPO preparations both rest partly on demonstrating that the category is not just a grocery delivery business.

What is less clear is whether this is good news or a distraction for the FMCG and D2C brands that built their quick commerce presence on the original grocery-first model.

What the super store expansion actually looks like

Blinkit has been expanding its SKU range most aggressively. Its app now includes electronics, mobile phones and accessories, pet care, baby products, fashion basics, and a growing beauty and personal care section. The Blinkit Gourmet format, still in a trial phase, is targeting premium food and beverage. BigBasket's multi-category quick commerce strategy is leveraging the Tata Group's brand portfolio, including Croma for electronics, 1mg for health, and Titan for watches, all delivered through its BB Now network.

Flipkart Minutes is differentiating itself most visibly through electronics and high-value non-grocery products, which play to Flipkart's existing category strength. Non-grocery already accounts for roughly 20 percent of Minutes' revenue. And Zepto, while still primarily grocery-heavy, has been expanding its beauty and personal care assortment significantly over the past year.

The practical outcome for brands is that the competitive landscape in non-grocery categories on quick commerce is getting more crowded faster than most brand teams anticipated. A beauty brand that had limited competition on Blinkit six months ago may now be competing against a much larger assortment, with better-funded players and platform-preferred category structures that it did not have to navigate before.

The opportunity for brands in non-grocery categories

For brands in beauty, personal care, pet care, baby products, and lifestyle categories, the Super Store expansion is a genuine opening. These categories are receiving more category manager attention, more ad formats, and more prominent placement than they were 18 months ago. Consumer intent for these purchases on quick commerce is growing as platforms normalise the expectation of getting non-grocery items delivered in 10 to 20 minutes.

The specific opportunity is in impulse-led, non-considered purchases within these categories. A consumer buying groceries on Blinkit who sees a well-placed skincare product or a pet treat at the checkout sees that recommendation in a high-intent, transactional context, one where a relevant product at a good price point has a meaningful chance of being added to the cart. This is a fundamentally different purchase trigger than the same brand appearing in a social media ad.

Brands in the Rs 100 to Rs 600 price range, with products that solve an immediate or recurring need, are structurally well-positioned for this shift. Protein supplements running low, a new shampoo to try, a dry pet food packet, an impulse snack. These categories benefit directly from the Super Store expansion.

Where FMCG brands need to be careful

For FMCG brands that built their quick commerce presence on the grocery side, the Super Store expansion does not automatically benefit them. The concern is more indirect. As platforms push harder into higher-margin non-grocery categories, the allocation of dark store shelf space, ad inventory, and category manager attention shifts. FMCG brands in commodity-adjacent categories like packaged foods, staples, and daily essentials are at risk of seeing their organic visibility diluted as the app surface becomes more contested.

The higher-consideration purchase problem is also real. A consumer on a quick commerce app who is looking for a ₹300 snack is in buying mode. A consumer looking at a ₹3,000 small appliance is not. Conversion rates for high-consideration products on an impulse-driven app interface are structurally lower, and the return and RTO management for these categories is still fairly primitive on most platforms. For brands in these spaces, quick commerce may be better treated as a trial and awareness channel than a primary volume driver, at least for now.

The other thing worth watching is ad cost inflation. As more categories compete for the same ad inventory and sponsored placements on Blinkit and Zepto, CPCs will continue to rise. Brands that are already managing margins carefully at current ad rates will face additional pressure as non-grocery brands with higher ticket sizes can sustain higher CPCs than FMCG brands can.

The practical question for brand teams

The Super Store expansion on quick commerce is not something brands should ignore, but it is also not uniformly good news for everyone. The right response depends on where your brand sits in the category mix.

For brands whose products are high-frequency, impulse-driven, and priced below Rs 600, the expansion creates new ad formats and more consumer touchpoints without fundamentally changing the playbook. For brands in higher-consideration categories entering quick commerce for the first time, the impulse format of the platforms is worth understanding clearly before building distribution expectations around it. And for FMCG brands already established on the platforms, the main work is staying ahead of visibility changes as the category mix expands and ad costs trend upward.

RevQ helps D2C and FMCG brands track their share of voice, organic rank, and ad campaign performance across Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy Instamart, and Flipkart Minutes, across both grocery and non-grocery categories.